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At this week's CTIA conference in Orlando, Florida a contest was held to determine the best in mobile applications, mobile consumer electronics, enterprise and vertical markets and network infrastructure. The contest, called the E-Tech Awards, was judged by media and industry analysts. The criteria for determining the winners included innovation, functionality, technological importance, implementation and overall “wow” factor. In addition, show participants and other industry peers could vote for their favorite via text message or online to pick the two "fan favorite" awards dubbed the "Best Online Pick" and "Best in Show."

Below is the list of the finalists and the winners.

As had been rumored, RIM officially announced yesterday that it will allow Android applications to run on its upcoming tablet computer, the PlayBook, when it launches on April 19th. The tablet will offer two optional "app players" which will provide run-time environments for BlackBerry Java apps and Android 2.3 apps, the company said. These players will be available from BlackBerry App World as free downloads and will be placed in a secure "sandbox" on the tablet computer. For developers, RIM promises an easy process of repackaging apps, code signing and re-submitting those apps to BlackBerry App World. By doing so, they will then have access to a new distribution channel - not only the PlayBook, but also the future RIM smartphones due out next year that will run the PlayBook's same QNX-based platform.

Initially, the decision to open up the PlayBook to running a competing platform's apps seems like a great idea for developers and consumers alike. But after more consideration, you have to wonder - what does this move say about RIM and its confidence in its own platform? Did it just lose any hope of attracting developers to build native apps? Did the PlayBook just become a "Frankentablet," as many are now saying? Let us know what you think in this week's ReadWriteMobile poll.

AT&T has just announced its intention to buy T-Mobile USA from parent company Deutsche Telekom in a cash-and-stock transaction valued at approximately $39 billion. Both boards of directors have approved the deal, which would make AT&T the largest wireless company in the United States, assuming the deal passes regulator approval.

The acquisition will allow AT&T to improve network quality for both companies' customers, says AT&T, while also enabling it to expand its 4G/LTE deployment to 95% of the U.S. population.

Research in Motion (RIM), maker of BlackBerry smartphones, is in a battle with mobile operators over its plans to use NFC in its forthcoming devices. NFC, short for "near field communication," is a technology that will enable mobile payments and mobile wallet-type applications, allowing customers to wave or tap their phones at point-of-sale to pay for purchases. According to a report from The Wall St. Journal today, the disagreement between RIM and the carriers has to do with where the credentials for these mobile payments will be stored - on a SIM card inserted into the phone, or, as RIM would have it, in a secure area within the BlackBerry device itself.

Meanwhile, in other NFC-related news, it appears that the iPhone 5 may have NFC capabilities after all, despite earlier reports saying plans for this had been scrapped.

I spent much of my fourth consecutive year at the South by Southwest Interactive festival capturing tweets, photos and other moments from the thousands of people in attendance. To accomplish this, I used curation platform Storify, which incidentally won this year's SXSWi Startup Accelerator competition for news technologies. Although still in private beta, Storify is getting a lot of well-deserved notice.

LinkedIn has been rolling out new features fairly regularly lately, as it strives to make the professional social network (and all its data) relevant and useful. Today, the company is unveiling another piece of its strategy to make LinkedIn a destination site for more than just job-seekers, with the launch of LinkedIn Today.

LinkedIn Today is an industry newspaper, of sorts, available online and via LinkedIn's iPhone app. It offers headlines and links to the popular stories within certain industries and within your LinkedIn network. You'll be able to see what others in your profession are reading, as well as "save" articles to read later.

New details have emerged regarding the purpose behind the DroidDream malware that was found in over 50 applications in the Android Market last week. After a brief investigation, Google opted to use its "remote kill switch" this weekend to wipe the vicious apps off end users' mobile phones. Google also promised that going forward, it was "adding a number of measures to help prevent malicious applications using similar exploits from being distributed through the Android Market" in the future.

But how dangerous was DroidDream, after all? What was it up to? And was it able to inflect any real damage to end users' devices before it was removed?

Microsoft has today announced that its Bing search engine has added a new partner, the popular travel search site Kayak. Going forward, Kayak will provide its flight search and pricing data to Microsoft which will be then integrated into Bing's search results. What that means for Bing users is that they will now have access to flight search data for more cities, more airports and more airlines, in more locations around the world thanks to Kayak, says Microsoft.

This is the second travel-focused update to Bing in less than two weeks, and is notable in light of Google's attempted acquisition of ITA Software, the system powering travel pricing for dozens of airlines and flight tracking sites. If that deal went through, it would strike a direct blow to Microsoft's attempt to innovate within the travel search vertical.

Microsoft is joining the coupon craze popularized by sites like Groupon and LivingSocial with the launch of a new service called Bing Deals. The program is not an in-house creation built from scratch, but is being made available through a partnership between Microsoft and The Dealmap, a deal-tracking service that aggregates local deals, coupons and discounts from over 300 different sources and daily deal websites.

Bing Deals will work both on the desktop and mobile (via m.bing.com) and is also heavily integrated into Bing's search engine itself.

Analytics firm Flurry has just announced a new video advertising network called AppCircle Clips which aims to bring a "TV commercial"-like experience to mobile applications and games. The video advertisements will reach over 30 million people per day, says Flurry, a larger audience than most successful primetime TV shows.

While initially, a consumer's gut reaction may be a groan at the thought of an ad popping up in the middle of an intense gaming session, the new service offers an enticing feature which may change their minds. Gamers can actually earn in-game rewards like virtual currency for viewing the clips and have the opportunity to earn even more if they share those clips via Facebook or Twitter.